Three UN peacekeepers have been killed in Lebanon in the past 24 hours as fierce fighting continues between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in the country’s south.
On Monday, two Indonesian monitors from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon were killed and two others were wounded when their logistics convoy came under fire, UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix told a briefing in New York.
“The origin of the explosion has not been determined,” Lacroix said.
An Indonesian gunman was killed and another wounded in an earlier attack on Sunday, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told a briefing.
The attacks – one on a UNIFIL position near Adchit Al Qusayr and the other near Bani Hayyan in southern Lebanon – come as Israel pursues Hezbollah militants amid a wider US-Israeli war against Iran, which has just entered its second month.
Since Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon, more than 1,200 people have died and more than 1 million have been displaced. Israel and Hezbollah also fought after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, leading to a shaky truce in 2024.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned Sunday’s attack in a post on X before two more deaths were reported. “This is just one of a number of recent incidents that have compromised the safety and security of peacekeepers,” he wrote.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot appeared to blame Israel for the attacks in a social media post on Monday calling for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council due to “extremely serious incidents”.
“These security breaches and this intimidation by Israeli army soldiers against UN personnel are unacceptable and unjustifiable,” Barrot wrote on X. “These condemnations were communicated in the strongest possible terms to the Israeli ambassador in Paris.”
The UN Security Council will discuss attacks on UN personnel in Lebanon on Tuesday morning in New York, according to Israel’s UN mission.
“Responsibility for the situation in southern Lebanon lies primarily with Hezbollah, which continues to turn the region into a battleground,” Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement. “Israel will continue to act decisively to protect its citizens from any threat on the northern border.”
This article was generated from an automated news agency source without text modification.
